


Indiginous

by Sergeant Heretic (2SFlovers)



Category: Saturday The twelfth of October
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 05:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2840408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2SFlovers/pseuds/Sergeant%20Heretic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>aN aMERICAN sPECIAL fORCES sOLDIER FINDS HERSELF LIVING WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE GREEN VALLEY AND IS THERE IN TIME TO TEACH zAN fORD A THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWO.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indiginous

“Sierra Foxtrot two, two zero to Tango Foxtrot Charlie, over.”

“Sierra Foxtrot two, two, zero to Tango Foxtrot Charlie, over”

Again, there was no answer over a clear channel to 2nd Lieutenant Samantha Fuller’s hails. Her personal role radio was fully powered and fully functional; there was nothing wrong with it. Lt. Fuller scanned the U.S. and NATO frequencies up and down the dial. There was nothing, no one was transmitting or receiving.

That should have come as no surprise to Lt. Fuller, given that she had been in the Iraqi desert and was now in the deepest thickest jungle she had ever seen. Samantha should have been shocked that the radio worked at all.

A Daisy Cutter air dropped fuel-air munition is the most powerful and devastating non-nuclear weapon in the U.S. Arsenal. When one is dropped, it leaves nothing, no survivors. Samantha Fuller had been right under it, in the center of the blast radius. The air force dropped on the village she and her team were fighting in and she made sure her team and the civilians got out before it fell. There had just been enough time to do that, Samantha was still there when the boom came down.

The last thing Samantha remembered was the shadow of the weapon covering her and her clinging to a large rock escarpment in one of the old buildings. Maybe it would protect her, maybe it would not, but there was nothing else she could do.

There was no way to prepare for or even predict what happened next. The massive rock seemed at first to shield her, and then it clung to her, and almost felt like it was soaking her up as if she were a droplet of water. Samantha found herself in a strange place of silver-black-grey-white light and pain. Samantha was falling, tumbling, and screaming in an endless storm of pain, disorientation, and horrible fear.

After that indescribable ordeal, Samantha realized she was lying on the ground near the rock, but it had changed. The entire landscape had changed. Now, she was in a deep wide undeveloped jungle a wilderness of massive trees and huge plants and insects the size of small birds.

Second Lieutenant Samantha Fuller was a member of the United States Army’s 5th special forces battalion. The storied Green Berets. Lt. Fuller was the only woman in the battalion.

Lt. Fuller endured everything the men endured. She passed every test, met every challenge, and did everything they had done.

Everything that is, except for Prisoner of War indoctrination and testing. At that point, her trainers knew what America’s enemies were most likely to do to a female Prisoner in their hands.

Major Jordan asked her to quit, promising that she would suffer no loss of esteem. Begging her to not force him to commit this extreme dishonor. He told her what he would have to do and why he would have to do it.

Samantha refused to quit.

Near the end of P.O.W. survival training indoctrination, Major Jordon in the guise of a Colonel from ‘Commie-Stan’ stripped Samantha naked. Then he beat Samantha. He kept her naked and cold and near starving. When she would not break, he raped her. Jordon raped her several times.

On each occasion, silent tears ran down the side of her face as she lay on her back being violated, but she never cried out. She never said a word.

Samantha Fuller refused to break. She refused to sign the ‘confession of her crimes’. Samantha refused to appear on camera badmouthing country or comrades. All she would do was to sit there staring at the camera. She refused to give information 

In fact, toward the end, she refused to do anything but sit where she was placed in a seeming catatonic stupor.

Lt. Samantha Fuller sat, naked, cold, and hungry in the dank dingy cell they kept her in. just staring at the walls and mindlessly shivering. To all appearances in a traumatized stupor.

The Army was, to say the least, concerned.

Finally, it took a U.S. Army Medical Corps Psychologist to try to reach her and tell her it was over. At that point, Samantha came back to life. She stood up in a halting manner that showed how body sore she was, came to attention saluted him, despite her nakedness and answered smartly,

“Yes, SIR!”

2nd Lieutenant Samantha Fuller was taken to Walter Reed medical center in Baltimore Maryland and placed in the Intermediate care wing for treatment of malnutrition, dehydration various bodily injuries exacerbated by neglect and post traumatic stress disorder. The staff did not have the military need to know the Army pilot program she was a part of and so they did not know how she had been injured. The doctor threatened an investigation until he found out HOW it happened and that it happened with her consent. Major (Dr.) Davis told the battalion commander,

“All that misery for a silly little hat. I just don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to, Dr. just get her better so we can give her that ‘silly little hat’  
She’s damned well earned it.”  
The 5th Special Forces Battalion of the United States Army (The Green Berets) welcomed 2nd Lieutenant Samantha Fuller as a squad leader. The non-commissioned officers in the Battalion referred to her as ‘Sir’ despite the fact that female officers were to be referred to as ‘ma’am.

This was because during P.O.W. indoctrination, the ‘camp commandant’ ordered in front of the male trainees to,

“Admit your crimes and the people’s tribunal will go easier on you, they may show you mercy.”

Samantha put her left hand between her legs and clutched at her vulva through her P.O.W. pajama bottoms and shouted back at him,

“SUCK MY DICK!”

The male trainees roared their approval and she became a rally point for the rest of them. They coalesced around concern for her welfare. That was why she was sequestered, debased, and repeatedly violated in the context of the training scenario. 

2nd Lieutenant Samantha Fuller took command of the third squad, first platoon, second company of the fifth Special Forces Battalion.

Her command consisted of herself, one Sergeant First Class, one Staff Sergeant, two buck Sergeants Four Corporals and two Specialists.

Her squad could if needed break into an Alpha or ‘A’ team and a Mike force.

In such a case, Lt. Fuller would command the Alpha team and Sergeant First Class Kunkle would lead the Mike force. Also, if needed the two teams could break into contact forces and act as local force multipliers.

Only if needed.

Lt. Sammantha Fuller became known as ‘whatever it takes’ Fuller, or ‘Witty’ Fuller as she was known to friends and intimates.

Once deployed to Iraq, Lt. Fuller and her squad executed one successful mission after another. Sometimes, she lost men, sometimes, she was wounded. However, she ALWAYS accomplished the mission objective.

After two tours, she was in line for a promotion of First Lieutenant, but it had not yet come though. She would have to take over the Platoon and her current platoon commander was not going anywhere. She also earned the bronze star, the Silver Star and two purple hearts.

Lt. Fuller and her squad were on their third tour when the Air Force dropped a Daisy cutter on her.

” Sierra Foxtrot two, two zero to Tango Foxtrot Charlie, Over.”

“Sierra Foxtrot two, two zero to Tango Foxtrot Charlie, over.”

2nd Lieutenant Samantha Fuller trekked through this forest still trying to reach someone ANYONE on the NATO or U.S. Frequencies. Over three hours had gone by before she broke through a tree line into a wide clearing. It was wide enough and open enough to give her a vista of the whole valley, or at least a good bit of it. It was wide enough and open enough to let her see the ring of mountains around the great valley.

There was no way her personal role radio was going to get a transmission out of that ring of stone and rock surrounding this massive salad bowl.

2nd Lt. Fuller was stuck for the Du-ration.

Samantha rationed her food and water as she marched toward the eastern mountain face. Samantha had the idea of marching to the foothills and then climbing as high as she could to get above the mineral interference keeping her from transmitting.

When she reached the foothills, her plan died a sickening death.

The sight that greeted her eyes ended her dream of a last ditch radio call and a Helo rescue.

There were caves in the foothills a surprising network of them. That was not the bad part. The bad part was the people living in them. 

No one and that is NO ONE lived in caves in 2005. Even the most primitive relict tribes in the back of beyond lived in constructed huts they built themselves. That had been the status quo for thousands of years. This was very bad, but just how bad was it? Samantha removed the telescopic sight from the Piccatiny rail on the dorsal side of her M4 rifle and peered through it at the tribe in and near the caves.

The children of various ages were naked. The teenagers and adults she could see were nearly naked wearing only a small garment that looked like a small flap held on by some kind of belt. Given how hot it was and how humid it was, Samantha’s own uniform clung and hung on her like a weight, due to the heat and humidity. That little flap was probably just a mark of status or their only concession to modesty.

The adults wore it, the kids didn’t, defiantly status. The climate clearly made nudity or near nudity the right wardrobe around here. Most of western civilization overdressed to death what with clothes, and then clothes over their clothes and then more over that.

Samantha was in the past.

She was so far back in the past that even the most basic things like clothes and buildings had not been developed yet. So far, back in antiquity that white people were going naked and living in caves. Necessity was the mother of invention and these people just didn’t need clothing.

For the rest of that day, the night and most of the next morning, Samantha watched these people of the Green Valley in their little tribe of perhaps 50 to 75 men women and children going to and fro about their daily lives. The strong did not victimize the weak; the believer did not oppress the non-believer. No one was made to be afraid. 

Lt. Samantha Fuller had dwindling food and water supplies and she was in a strange country with no real way to get home. Her only choice was to throw herself on the mercy and charity of the tribe of the green valley and hope that the unconditional kindness of primitives was not just a modern romantic myth.

Samantha spent that night sleeping fitfully in the crook of the large boughs of a massive tree. Early the next morning, Samantha trekked out to a spot approximately 100 yards away from the tribe’s caves. Samantha used her field knife and a large flat rock to dig a four-foot deep hole. Digging with a shovel or an entrenching tool would have been hard. Digging with a field knife and a flat rock and her own hands was a sweaty muscle aching daylong pain in the ass. Samantha was in very good physical condition, she was young she was fit enough to serve in the Green Berets and she did not drink nor did she smoke. Even so, digging that four-foot deep hole under those conditions was a labor of Hercules.

Samantha did it, but at the end, dusk was falling again and she had to spend yet another night in her tree. The next morning, She searched for and found a tree with leaves wide and large enough to serve her needs. It was less than ten yards away from her hole. She gathered a stack of leaves, and then Samantha took a break. She drank water, at a couple of meal bars and planned.

A bottom layer of rocks and stones, a median layer of leaves and third layer of her poncho liner, then her stuff.

Samantha disassembled her sidearm and put it in the pit, and then she dismounted and disassembled her rifle, after that, Samantha put in her tactical vest and her field knife. Her dismounted and disassembled Personal Role Radio followed those items.

Then that was followed by the contents of her desert Battle Dress Uniform pockets. Personal items and various sundries. None of witch the Green Valley Tribe would know anything about. Samantha chucked in her watch and her West Point Graduation ring and her Oakley brand anti-glare eyewear. Samantha was forgetting something, something of witch no one in the Green Valley tribe had, or even had any concept The Quarter dropped when she saw her own shadow. Samantha’s uniform, her boots, and everything under them.  
If Samantha walked in wearing all of that stuff, she might as well walk in wearing a space suit, or a suit of armor. Either would be as foreign to them and equally as frightening.

The people of the green valley would not accept her. She would be seen as an eldritch abomination, feared, and shunned.

Samantha remembered her torture, rape, and debasement at the hands of the Army’s SpecOps training command. Ever since then Samantha had never been naked in front of other people unless she was showering. This was going to be the most difficult part of this process. This would be the hardest thing she would have to do.

Lt. Samantha Fuller looked down into the pit she had laboriously dug. It was filled with everything she carried and wore when she was swept to this strange new world.

Everything but the literal clothes on her back. The cloth coverings over her body that the local tribe would not understand or comprehend.

Samantha fingered the cloth rank patch on her right color point. It was a small picture of a brown rectangle. It was the subdued version of a Second Lieutenant’s gold bar of rank. Then she touched the cloth patch that showed a pair of miniature arrows crossed on her left collar point. The insignia of the U.S. Army Special Forces command.

Over her right breast was a cloth tapestrip that read ‘Fuller’ Over her left breast was a cloth tapestrip that read “U.S. ARMY’ Above that was a cloth patch of a combat infantry badge and above that a cloth patch of an Airborne badge. On her left shoulder were the patch of the 5th special forces Battalion, the Ranger tab and the Airborne tab. On her right shoulder was the full color patch of the flag of the United States.

Samantha ran her fingers and hands over the heraldry that marked her position and standing in the United States Army. It told the world, who she was, who and what she served and what she stood for. Samantha told herself that she was whom she was and she stood for what she stood for. The clothes she wore or the lack thereof had nothing to do with that. Nothing could take away what she achieved or what she could do, not even being naked or nearly so in front of the whole universe.

After telling herself that she spoke aloud,

“A Soldier is a Soldier, even naked and weaponless she remains a Soldier.”

Lieutenant Samantha Fuller removed the desert camouflaged Boonie hat from her head. She dropped it into the pit she dug, on top of the other equipment.

After that, Lieutenant Fuller unbuttoned each of the four buttons of her desert camouflaged Battle Dress Uniform Blouse. Then she unbuttoned the buttons on the cuffs of the sleeves of her uniform blouse. After tha, she removed it from her shoulders and took it off, holding it in her hands and looking at it for a moment before dropping it into the pit on top of the other articles. Samantha sat on the prominent root of a nearby tree and untied her arid climate tactical boots, unlacing them far enough down to be able to pull them from her feet. Tossing them in with everything else. 

‘Socks, cushioned sole, median tan, change your socks, whenever you can, the desert’ll grind your feet right off your legs.’ Samantha pulled them from her feet, rolled them into a ball and chucked them into the pit.

So far, so good, now it was going to get tough.

Samantha stood up on bare feet and felt the soil and grass between her toes and under her soles of her feet.

Her hands went to the black metal buckle of her U.S. Army issue triple knit belt and unbuckled it by sliding the clasp bar from left to right. This caused it to fall open, then she unbuttoned the four buttons on the front fly of her battle dress uniform trousers and pushed them from her hips and legs, kicking out of them and dropping them in.

Samantha’s hands took hold of the hem of her tan U.S. Army issue cotton undershirt and pulled upward, removing that garment from her torso and breasts in the cross-forearmed manner that only women seem to be able to do. That also joined the growing collection of clothing and equipment in the pit.

Samantha’s left hand went to the four hook-clasps at the back of her brassier and unhooked them in a long practiced and almost instinctive manner. She then removed it, exposing her breasts to air and daylight. The Maidenform 36C cup undergarment fell into the pit on top of the other clothing items.

Samantha put her hands to her hips once more, this time hooking her thumbs in the elastic waistband of her green cotton panties, pushing them downward from her hips, down her legs, and then kicking them into the pit. Samantha knew the Special Forces custom of going without lower undergarments, or “Going commando” but, for sanitary reasons, she never subscribed to it. A woman, however tough she might be, could not practically do that.

Samantha was now consciously, and self consciously aware of the feel of the sun and the air on her now naked body. The sensation was not at all unpleasant. She actually felt better now that she did not have all of that material covering her Now that she was out from under the weight of undergarments, uniform, and gear that had become heavy and grimy feeling due to her efforts of the day.

Samantha was naked in a strange almost otherworldly forest about to try to ingratiate herself with a tribe of primitives who were likewise naked.

Well, not quite.  
Every adult or teenager she had seen wore a single flap of material over his or her genitals, whether for reasons of superstition or simple custom and they would look with suspicion on anyone who was not thusly attired. A flap of material held in place by some kind of belt. Samantha retrieved the belt from her trousers and used it to buckle her tan neckerchief over her pubic mound and vulva in a likewise manner.

Attired in nothing but her belt and neckerchief as a loincloth/breechclout and her personal identification plates, Samantha covered her clothes and gear and weapons with the remaining poncho liner followed by several more large leaves, and finally pushed the pile of dirt back into the hole to cover and hide the damning futuristic anachronistic items.

Being essentially naked out in “public” was a new experience for Samantha. Non-sexual nudity out in the big world was weird, but defiantly survivable.

In any case, Samantha was dealing with certain practical considerations as she walked through this forest back to the caves. Sore feet from trekking over the forest floor in bare feet, and the possibility of sunstroke. That was remote, however, given that the forest canopy was thick and expansive covering much of the ground.

In the afternoon of that day, Samantha was not leisurely walking to the caves, she was running from a large hairy prehistoric looking creature that looked like a combination of a bear and a mountain lion. It was during this headlong flight from the giant hairy whatever-it-was that she turned to look behind her to see if it was still there and Samantha’s head made sudden violent contact with a low hanging tree limb she would have seen and been able to avoid easily had she been looking ahead of her. Her head hit the tree, and then she hit the ground, having been knocked unconscious by the sudden sharp blow to her skull. The creature sniffed at her still form curiously, it was not hungry, it had just been disturbed by the stranger entering its territory and wanted her to go away. Now the transgressor was out of its territory and all was well. The creature slowly ambled away back to it’s now untrammled domain in the forest.

Samantha for her part slept in a blissful oblivion on enforced unconsciousness.

She was riding in a black van with red piping and four men were with her. They seemed to be driving through a cartoonish almost video game-like landscape in witch 16-bit images of Arab terrorists popped up and Samantha shot them. She was gleefully shooting the 16-bit baddies when she looked down at her weapon and realized it was a large erect penis she was holding in her hands, and every time she fired, a spurt of thick white viscous fluid hit the Bad guy and made him disintegrate. 

She woke up and a teenaged girl was squatting beside her. The tanned dark haired girl was young, maybe 13 or 14 at most and she wore one of the flaps of material at her waist over her groin. She was also wearing a sort of netlike object at the back of her head. The girl was leaning over Samantha and tasting one of her Personal Identification plates.

Samantha turned her head to look at the girl and asked, not unkindly,

“Could you take that out of your mouth, please?” The girl dropped the P.I.P. she was tonguing and exclaimed,

“Aiiieeee, SSSSSS.”

Samantha got up and then regretted it. Her head hurt where the branch hit it and she put her hand to the raised bump on her forehead.

“Son of a bitch, that stings.”

The girl obviously did not understand her but could tell she was in pain. She put her hand to the bump on Samantha’s head and cooed soothingly.

Samantha grimaced and told her, 

“Yeah, thanks kiddo, that helps.”

“It did not, really, but the kid’s heart was in the right place.

Samantha got an idea and sat up fully, then she said definitively, “Samantha” and slapped her hand on her chest between her breasts, for emphasis, she did it again saying once more “Samantha!”

That did it, the young girl slapped her own chest and said “Bur-rum” Then she slapped Samantha’s breast a little harder than she had to and said “Sa-man-ta.”

That was close enough. Samantha decided to speak as little as possible until she knew these people’s language to avoid confusion.

Lt. Samantha Fuller was experienced in indigenous cultural liaison. It was a very simple process that boiled down to one thing, Shut up and learn, look around and most of all when in a deep dark strange jungle wilderness do as the natives do, or at least as much as you can manage.

The girl, Bur-rum looked behind her frequently making sure Samantha was still following along, Sam stuck with her. The two of them took a slightly more meandering course back through the forest to the cave settlement, but Sam did not mind, Bur-rm was chattering away at her the whole way and Sam listened intently trying to get a feel for the rhythm and pattern of her language. Sam would not be able to get much until she heard the language in an interactive sense, but she could, at least for now discern that it WAS a language and not just meaningless vocalizations.

That was a very important step.

As the two women made their way through the dense jungle and then through the clearing, Samantha though hard about the many things she was going to have to learn, or rather, Unlearn. Hysterical body modesty was one of the first things she was having to make herself chuck out the door. The perverse need to cover her whole body regardless of need or circumstance would, as she had already figured out, do more harm than good. History and anthropology was littered with examples of people living in non-western-non-industrial undeveloped areas that wore nothing more that simple ornamental genital decoration, as these people did. This was because their home climate was so warm and hospitable that there was no need for anything more, even in the 21st century western clothing customs in these climates were shown to be invariably alien and more trouble than they were worth.

In western culture, nudity had become fetishized, sexualized, and turned almost into a phobia. Not only a fear and disgust at others seeing you naked, but also a fear and disgust of seeing other people naked.

In a strictly dispassionate sense, it was quite frankly, crazy. Not only was it crazy, but it made room for other forms of craziness, like war, like classism, like social arrogance.

If you have two naked humans, how do you tell witch one is ‘better’ or ‘more important’ or more ‘worthy’ than the other. If everyone is nude or nearly so, how do you wage a war when there is no effective way to tell which humans are ‘the enemy’?

Clearly, thought Samantha, there was a great deal to be said for going ‘au natural’ 

What was more, clothes got dirty, and unless washed they STAYED dirty, they stank, they encouraged diseases they collected bacteria. Clothes collected sweat and kept it on your body when it would have evaporated, or flaked off with dead skin if you were not covered up.

Much like the lunatic missionaries who brought them, clothes were often one of the worst things one could inflict on an otherwise functional non-western people.

Samantha recalled the story of a missionary telling a pacific islander all about sin and shame and told him that sin began because the first humans realized they were naked. The islander asked him, “So being aware of and ashamed of my nakedness is a sin?”

“Of course.”

“Then why did you tell me about it and make me ashamed?”

It was with great surprise that Samantha came out of that reverie and realized they had arrived at the caves and Bur-rum was pulling Samantha up the rock face by one arm. It was not that steep a climb and it was not that high up in terms of sheer altitude. In a decent set of mountain boots, it probably would not have been any great effort, but in bare feet with no other means of assist, it was more of an effort. Samantha sweated with the effort of getting up to the cave shelf level, but the open air was drying her sweat shortly after the two reached the big rock shelf.

The others looked at Sam curiously, but not in an unfriendly manner. She was a stranger, but Samantha truly did not look that strange. She was dressed, or rather, NOT dressed much as they were. She was an adult in appearance, and wore something similar to the same loin covering they did and nothing else. The only strange items they noticed were her personal identification plates, and the strange to them skin tattoo on her left shoulder. It was a full color tattoo of her Special Forces tab, her airborne tab and the lightning arrowhead of the 5th Special Forces battalion. Sam smiled at them in a friendly manner and when they spoke to her, she looked confused and shrugged telling them “I don’t understand”. Then she let her shoulders sag and looked as sad and lost as she felt as she said, “I am lost. Will you help me, teach me, and help me understand?”

Her words were a mystery to these people, but her meaning was clear. Several of the older women clustered around her and took her back into the cave with them.

She learned their names and trained her ear to hear the letters that spelled them the one who made the greatest effort to teach Samantha was a woman named Farwe . She was Bur-rum’s mother. Bur-rum’s aunt was named Maibu obviously in addition to being a tribe, they were really one large extended family. One woman stood off and watched Samantha, an older woman that everyone else seemed to respect a great deal, her name was Diwera, Sam knew without having to ask that Diwera was their shaman, a combination of village ruler, doctor, and priest.

Samantha learned at her first meal to eat what she was given. In practical terms, this was far from the first time she made a meal of insects. One lyric of the 5th special forces anthem clearly stated,

‘Trained to live off nature’s land’.

Samantha had to admit that the non-vertebrate wildlife in these parts was not bad eating at all the way these folks prepared it.

It was far from the worst thing she had ever eaten; those wretchedly over spiced Buffalo wings in that crappy sports bar in Amarillo came to mind. Compared to those, the cooked white grubs wrapped in leaves were ambrosia.

Samantha ate until she stopped being hungry, rather than eating until she felt full. It was a fine line, but knowing on witch side of it to be was a great way to fit in. She would be seen as neither a snob nor a pig. A boy named Sonte’ offered her more to eat, but she demurred, patting her tummy and smiling. That gesture seemed to please the whole crowd Samantha had no idea why. 

Their language was a very fluid thing, and it seemed to bear very little resemblance to any language Samantha knew. It sounded as if it were a proto-form of some Asian or southwest Asian dialects, perhaps when it grew up it would become Hindustani, or the proto-form of the Chinese dialects, or perhaps Persian. In any case, Farwe was being patient with her, and Samantha was an eager student. First Farwe started her on the basics, the parts of her body, hand, head, eye ear belly. Then they began on objects, rock, tree, cave, food, river, meadow. Samantha grasped the basic grammar, such as it was and learned the syntax, then the vocabulary. After weeks of learning Farwe, asked Samantha a Question,

“Where are your people?’

“They are in another place.”

“Beyond the mountains?”

“Yes, Farwe, beyond the mountains.”

“Why did you come to our valley, Sa-man-ta?”

“I did not mean to come here; I do not know how I came to be here.”

“Is your belly good?”

Samantha did not understand that question, she asked Farwe,

“What do you mean?”

“Is your belly happy; is the spirit in your belly quiet?”

Samantha got it. These people believed that the spirit dealt in the belly, and if the belly felt bad, the spirit was not well. It made sense, given that when people got sick or afraid or angry the first place to feel it was ‘in the pit of your stomach’ it explained phrases like ‘gut wrenching panic’.

“Yes, Farwe, my belly is good, it is happy.”

“That is good, you have done good work, here, helping us gather food and find the good grubs and the sweet ants, and the good nuts. You have added your own labors to ours, showing that you do not take without giving back.”

“The wise women of my people teach that one cannot take without giving back, our great spirit would get angry if we took from others without giving back.”

“What would happen if your great spirit got angry, Sa-man-ta?”

“Our food would turn to stones in our mouth, the water, would turn to poison in our stomachs, the sun would go away, the night demons would come for us.”

Farwe reached over and put her hand on Samantha’s shoulder, she felt the skin of her tattoo,

“What does this mean? Why do you have this strange mark on you, did your great spirit put it there?”

Samantha had to think fast, what would sound good without sounding like complete bull muffins?

“We have a clan of protectors in my land. They wear this mark to show that they are protectors of the weak. I have heard the old teller tell the story of Niben who came from beyond the mountains. If a man like Niben comes to our people, the ones who wear this mark would drive him away. We would protect the little ones and all the people from him.”

“I have this mark for I am a protector.”

Farwe, touched the Personal Identification Plates and asked,

“What do these mean?”

“These are my spirit plates. If I am far away from my land, I must still protect the small and the weak, and if I fall when I do this, those tell the Great Spirit where I am and she comes to lead my spirit to the land of midnight sun.”

“What is the name of your great Spirit?”  
“Her name is Columbia.”

“We are protected by Miiawa.”

“That is enough questions for now, Sa-man-ta, go and enjoy the sun, go and find some firewood for the fire later on.”

“Yes, Farwe, I will do this.”

Samantha left the caves and proceeded into the forest to see if she could not find some decent wood. As she was doing this she saw, Bu-rum and Sonte’ together in the forest, a few yards away.

It didn’t bother her, and in fact, she thought it was sweet. Despite that, she knew there was drama because of Hifaru, the boy that looked like he had his face half pushed in. He was seriously put out about seeing them together. Samantha by now knew why. Hifaru was Diwera’s son, and Bur-rum was promised to him as his mate. Bur-rum and Sonte’ were friends so close that in time they would have become lovers. That was a demonstration of how retarded arraigned marriages were. Samantha was shaking her head at the arbitrary silliness of it when she heard the noise.

Remembering that massive creature that chased her, Samantha was up the nearest tree in a flash having dropped her wood. Samantha was inwardly amazed at how nimble she had become. Her feet were now so nimble and flexible as to be nearly prehensile, and her whole body had become startlingly flexible. Curiously, Samantha remembered wearing shoes and boots and though about how restrictive and limiting they now would feel.

She used the vantage point to look around and see what the noise was. It was a girl. She could not have been more than 13 or 14 if she was a day, but the truly striking thing was that she was wearing clothes. Athletic shoes, blue jeans, and an orange short-sleeved pullover shirt she was also yelling and making one terrible racket.

“Hello, is anybody here, HEY HELLO, CAN YOU HEAR ME???”

If she did not knock it off something was going to come out and eat her.  
Samantha was thinking of going to help her when the strange girl went frantically haring off into the tree line. Samantha followed her easily given that she was so noisy and sloppy she might as well have been crapping a trail of yellow dye. Samantha could tell exactly where this girl was going, that was no great trick, a blind Republican Tobacco salesman could tell where this noisy panicky freaked out mess was going. Eventually, she collapsed and after she spent hours laying there in a near catatonic state Sonte’ and Bur-rum made their way to the location from witch the noise had come. Bur-rum found her first, and drew Sonte’s attention to the strange girl.

Samantha was up a tree several yards away and listened in,

“She had mingaus all over her body, and her skin was covered in spots like a salamander, come you must come see.”

“Mingaus all over her body, tell me, where have you been sleeping that you dreamed this girl?”

The Mingau was what the people called the flap of birch bark that hung in front of the genitals of adults and teens in the tribe. Samantha now wore her own made of birch bark and had placed her belt and kerchief in the hole with her other clothes. Now all she wore were the Mingau and her P.I.P’s. The people, even Diwera had conceded them as talismans of ‘Kolumya” Samantha’s ‘Sky Spirit and sister to Miiawa.” ‘Sa-man-ta’ revered the forest, and worked with the people, played with them, ate with them, slept with them, she even showed fear for the Anouch’i and trust in Miiawa. To Diwera she was one of them.

Samantha knew that this freaked out kid in to her modern century clothes would go over like a lead balloon. Samantha dropped back and kept to the upper branches of the trees, until she had to hit the ground where forest met caves. Then she blended in with the rest of the people. When this girl followed Bur-rum to the caves later that day, the people surrounded her Even Samantha joined them touching her and feeling her clothes, Samantha for her part to make sure she was real, that another visitor from out of time was here. 

By now, Samantha had been here for several months. Her hair was longer and she was in much better shape than she had been even as a Green Beret. Her feet had soles almost leather tough and her skin was much darker than it had been. She was almost indistinguishable from the People.

Almost

Her left shoulder was still adorned with distinctive military heraldry and her neck was still festooned with two plastic rimmed metal plates that gave her name her blood type her religion, and her serial number.

Samantha watched the girl from afar for hours and listened to Bur-rum talk about her. She was profoundly amused to hear that the girl’s name was apparently ‘Meezzan’ That was not hard to puzzle out, miss thing probably spoke in absurd pidgin English as she told Bur-rum ‘Me Zan, Me Zan’ Result, Meezzan”. . Samantha stood off and watched until early in the Moring she saw the girl squatting on the rock shelf staring out at the night with unfocussed eyes and tightly gripping a dime store pocketknife.

When Samantha saw that blade, out and open her blood froze and her skin turned to ice. A knife, a blade made of steel. It could not be more dangerous in this climate if ‘Meezzan’ had been brandishing a nuclear weapon. There was a clear-cut reason Samantha had buried everything she had that even resembled a weapon.

* * *

 

Zan Ford sat curled up into a nearly fetal ball leaning against the solid rock of the cave exterior. She sat clutching her knife, blade extended as defensive protection against the impossibility of this crazy impossible place with it’s crazy impossible things and crazy impossible people.

They were dirty naked savages speaking gibberish and doing disgusting things and she hated them. They touched her and fondled her clothes and stared at her and that was why she built her safe protective crystal bubble behind witch Zan Ford hid, safe, untouchable with her knife blade out and held as if it were a sword before her.

Burrum sat beside her cooing incomprehensible noises at Zan and rubbing her shoulders, somehow through the crystal bubble, She did that for hours but then gave up to go and sleep in the cave.

An unknowable time later, one of the women walked in front of her and then sat down beside her where Burrum had been sitting. This woman, who looked to Zan like some kind of athlete or something then did the one thing Zan would never have seen coming.

She said the following,

“You know, you look pretty darned crazy sitting crouched up here like a spider gripping that knife, right?” 

Those words, spoken in a language Zan clearly understood, shattered her carefully built crystal dome and made her drop the knife in sheer shock. Zan turned toward the woman and asked, no demanded,

“What, what did you say?”

Zan looked at this woman in shock, she was almost naked, just like them, her hair was long and unkempt just like theirs and her skin was dark almost as dark as theirs. Despite all of that, there was something different about her, something strange.

“So, I am guessing your name is ‘Zan’, what’s that short for, Alexandra?”

“What, how, how did you know?”

“It wasn’t hard, kid, ‘Meezzan’ ‘Me-Zan’; you watch too many Tarzan movies.”

Zan had too many questions, so many that the bottleneck in her mind rendered her speechless. The woman responded by reaching down and picking up her knife, telling her,

“I will just be taking that, if you don’t mind. We don’t need to be leaving dangerous things like this around these parts, now do we?”

Zan expressed possessive outrage as she shouted, 

“Hey, that’s mine, give it back!” Then it sunk in that this woman spoke English acted like an adult and seemed to know a lot more that she was letting on.

“Who Are you?”

“I am Second Lieutenant Samantha Fuller, United States Army, 5th Special Forces Group.  
The question is, who are you?

“Zan Ford, Alexandra Mary Ford, High school student. Where are we, what is this place?”

“Well Zan, I don’t know for sure, I found myself here after I was almost vaporized by friendly fire when an Air Force Fuel-Air bomb was dropped on my position. I made a pretty feeble attempt to hide under a big ole rock when the rocks seemed to absorb me and I found myself here in Johnny Weissmuller’s backyard. What’s your story?”

 

Zan related her account, one of street crime, trauma, familial betrayal and a devout desire to be ‘away’ to be ‘somewhere else’. Then it occurred to Zan to ask, almost accusingly,

“Why are you naked, why are you going around like one of them?”

“It’s pretty simple stuff, kid, and standard Special Forces protocol. When we are separated from our command and control structure with no reasonable expectation of rescue or resupply or communications, we go native, we go to ground and adopt the ways and customs of the local population.”

“So what, now you’re going to tell me I have to get naked too?”

“Heck, no, Kid, You’re a civilian, do what you like and on your own head be it.”

“O.K., then give me back my knife.”

“Ah, yeah, no, that’s not going to happen. That knife is a potentially dangerous and deadly weapon. I am not about to leave it in the wrong, hands, and right now the state your in, that includes you, Zan Ford.”

“Stop being stupid, it’s just a pocket knife, it’s no big deal.” Zan responded as she pouted resentfully.

“No, it is a very sharp blade made of smelted tempered steel in a place and with people who have never heard of any of the above.”

Samantha clutched the closed knife in her hand and felt smooth rounded edges, no sharp corners, or potential objects that could snag or catch on anything such as soft tissue or mucosa membranes.

“And if you want it, little lady, then come and get it.” 

Sam got up on one knee and carefully reached between her legs, gingerly pushing the closed rounded edge pocket knife into her vulva and vagina for safe keeping until she could get to her hidey hole and place the pocket potential disaster there for safekeeping.  
Samantha pitied men for only having one bodily orifice in witch to place items in desperate situations. Zan was utterly repulsed as she saw the older woman shove Zan’s knife in her,…in her,… Zan suddenly had to run to the edge and vomit or rather dry heave, as she had not eaten in better than twelve hours.

When Zan had better control over herself she looked at Samantha and told her disgustedly,

“You’re sickening; you’re just like them, a filthy disgusting hateful savage.”

Samantha looked cheerfully bemused as she told Zan, 

“And you are an immature, self centered; infant who doesn’t know who she is or where she is or what the heck is going on.” 

Then Samantha went inside and curled up with the rest of the tribe on the great sleeping mat.

Zan spent the rest of the night in fuming sickened red-eyed fury, but even she could not keep it up all night, eventually, Bur-rum shook her awake, speaking that strange incomprehensible babble they spoke here. Zan stood up, looked in the cave for that disgusting army woman, and did not see her. Zan wanted her knife, back, whom did that woman think she was taking Zan’s things; She wasn’t Zan’s mother, or teacher or anything. She saw her coming back from the forest with an armload of sticks, probably for the fire. Zan clumsily blundered her way down the hilly face of the mountain and demanded,

“Give it, give me back my knife. Stick your slimy fingers back up your cunt,” 

Zan felt somehow tougher and more grown up and more resolute when she said that word, so much so she said it again,

“Back up your cunt and give me my knife, you,…you, you bitch.”

“I can’t do it, it’s not there anymore.”

“What did you do with it, where did you put it?”

Samantha smiled and brushed past Zan on her way to the caves and said over one shoulder,

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

Samantha could not help thinking to herself that this girl needed to figure out just what was happening in a hurry. She was in an undeveloped unindustrialized environment with people who were living a non-technological but completely balanced existence. They lived in this virtual Eden, that gave them everything they needed with only a modicum of labor and they seemed not to need television, or electronic gimcracks, or 24 hour news, or any of the junk people seemed to ‘need’ in 2005.

Samantha dropped the load of firewood she brought up and then dumped out her net bag on the back of her head. In it she had collected aspa nuts, and edible mushrooms and little white sweet roots and some kind of prehistoric second cousin to a cashew for witch she had developed a taste.

Samantha went back out on the shelf to see if she could spot Farwe, to tell her about the nuts she brought her. 

“Farwe, Farwe, inside there are root nuts for you to eat that I have brought.”

Farwe answered cheerily,  
“My thanks to you, Sa-man-ta, I will enjoy them, but you must share them with me at the time of the teller.”

“I will, Farwe, we will have a good time.”

Zan watched that Soldier woman speak these people’s babble with one of the Savages and, no longer able to stand the sight of her went down the rock face to find Burrum, maybe the other girl could tell her where Soldier lady hid her knife, or better, how to find the field with the rock that brought her here.

Zan found Bur-rum, but was dismayed to find that she just could not make herself understood. Bur-rum had no idea how to speak or understand English and Zan had no way of understanding the language of the people. This gulf was, for now insurmountable and Zan realized she would have to deal with Samantha the army witch 

Zan found her by the river with many other adults. The army woman was lazily kicking her feet in the water and seemingly drowsing. Zan walked up and made ready to kick her to get her attention when the Soldier’s hand snapped out as if it were a rattlesnake and took hold of Zan’s foot, holding it securely, before using the leg it was attached to as a lever to pull Zan to the ground and put herself on top of Zan, handily restraining her.

“You’re never gonna get there, Zan, it’s just not going to happen. I think it’s time you and I had a nice long talk.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Zan demanded as she struggled in vain to get free,

“Let go of me!”

“What exactly is it in your head that made you think you could walk up to a Special Forces soldier and just kick her in the ribs as if you were back on a schoolyard, Zan? 

“GET OFF ME!”

“If you think this is really the worst I can do, you really are deluded. You don’t have any idea just how gentle I am being with you right now. Now I am going to let you up, and then the two of us are going to take a nice walk and have a nice talk about life, the universe, and everything. Are we clear?”

“Yes.”

Zan was angry and resentful as Samantha let her up and even pulled her to her feet, but then thought about what she could have done in light of what little she knew of ‘Green Berets’ from movies and Television. Those thoughts were far from comforting.

Samantha finally got around to the question about Zan that had been bothering her all this time.

“Zan, before you found yourself here, what year was it?”

Zan was confused at the question, but then asked,

“Why would you ask that?”

“Humor me.”

Sam answered, gamely, smiling. Zan rolled her eyes and responded almost mockingly,

“It’s 1975, why, what year do YOU think it is?”

“Are you ready for a shock?”

“Thrill me.”

“When the Air Force dropped that fuel-air explosive on me, it was September 23rd , in the year of our lord 2005. Thirty years in your future, or for all I know, just one possible future.”

Zan was curious, Mr Oberdorfer, her science teacher talked about time travel and jumping from a part of the riverbank into the river and finding yourself at another point. She thought it was somewhat crazy, but here she was, and here was the Army woman who thought it was thirty years in the future.”

“What’s a ‘fuel-air thingamajig?”

“A fuel-air explosive, It’s a bomb that uses ignited jet fuel to literally set the air on fire to creat a bigger more devastating explosion. It’s almost a third cousin to a pony nuke, only no radiation, or other nasty effects, just the big boom and lots of dead people.”

“Why did our air force drop one on you?”  
“Friendly fire, kiddo, it was addressed to somebody else, but I happened to be at the same address, I saw it coming down and wished with all my might to be anywhere but there, guess I should have been a little more specific.”

Sam finished with a sheepish grin.

“I know how you feel, about wanting to be someplace else, but for me, no one was trying to kill me or anything, I just,…”

Sam remembered Zan’s recounting, and put a hand on her shoulder,

“I know, kiddo, I know, that’s pretty rough stuff, I’m sorry you had to go through that, Sometimes family can suck pretty hard, huh.”

Zan expected many things, from Samantha after the acrimony between them, but not sympathy, not understanding. Zan missed her family and felt bad about the terrible thoughts she had about Ivan and her mother and Sam could tell. Zan was not a bad kid; she was just lost and scared and needed a friend.

“Zan, I do not understand how you or I came to be here, or if we can ever go home again, but what I do know is we’re here now and we have to survive and adapt or die. These people here are good people and they want to help you, but you can’t keep getting by holding yourself apart. Bur-rum wants to be your friend, but sometimes you scare her, she does not understand the way you act sometimes.”

“So what do I call you?”

“Call me ‘Sam’. After all, this entire situation is not exactly formal or military, now is it, besides that, I want to be your friend, and then too, it’s pretty tough to adopt a military pose in a breechclout with my boobies hanging out.” 

Samantha said with a self-deprecating grin.

Zan smiled back and realized something had just changed for the two of them. Then she asked Samantha,

“What are things like in the future, what happens in the future?”

“Well, as I told you, Zan, I may well come from what is just one possible future from your point of view. What happened to shape my world might be totally irrelevant to what happens in your world.”

“Well, tell me anyway, come on, don’t be so stingy.”

Zan persisted.

Samantha answered,

“I might tell you later, Kiddo, for now, though why don’t you go hang out with Bur-rum, I think she wants to be your friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Sarge has passed away. Her stories remain to entertain and delight, but no more are coming.


End file.
